Because social media only costs in time and not in clear, clean dollars, the ROI is a little more slippery and many business owners don’t bother to track if their social media strategies are succeeding or not. But time is money, so you need to know if you’re wasting it or spending it wisely. To make sure you know whether or not your social media efforts are time well spent, here are a few basic ways to track if your social media efforts are being successful or if you need to reevaluate:

The point of all of these metrics is to make you aware of what is and is not working so that you can adjust your strategy. Remember, this is about taking a step back so you can improve your strategy, i.e. work on your business instead of just working in your business.

Unfortunately, for every great online marketing professional out there, there are 10 more people who truly suck. I’ve heard tons of horror stories from entrepreneurs who got burned by a social media or SEO expert and are now too gun shy to hire an expert again. You shouldn’t let the bad apples scare you off from the entire profession, though. Here are some tips I’ve learned from clients’ experiences that will hopefully help you pick a top notch online marketing professional and not waste another penny on one who’s not worth his or her salt.

If you have any other tips for how to spot the superstar online marketers in a sea of fakes, please let me know in the comments below!

Google+ hasn’t always gotten much respect as a key social media channel for business promotion, but that’s changing. Google+ is growing rapidly and provides some extra benefits that some of the other big players don’t. It’s also one of my top traffic referrers, so I recommend that anyone not already using it for their business at least give it a try.

Not only is Google+ a property of the largest search engine in the world, Google (duh), but also it has a great interface and isn’t completely overrun with spammers yet so you can still get some great interaction from other users pretty easily. Google+ is similar to Facebook in that you can create both a personal profile and a company page, so if you want to promote your business you should get started by creating both.

Check out the video below to learn more about why and how you should be using Google+ to help promote your business.

Every entrepreneur needs to assess the pros and cons of each potential marketing avenue and not every social media platform is right for every business. However, if you haven’t checked out Google+ yet, you’re missing out. The SEO benefits as well as the level of engagement you can generate from other users make it a platform that all entrepreneurs should at least try out before deciding if it’s right for them.

Creating pro forma financial statements is tough for anyone, especially new entrepreneurs, and there are a few common mistakes that I see those entrepreneurs make time and time again. Since the same missteps seem to trip up tons of newbies, I figured I’d share some of the ones I see most often to help prevent you from falling into the same trap. So, here are some of the top financial projection bloopers entrepreneurs make so that you can avoid them as you build your own pro formas.

Everyone has excuses for why they can’t or shouldn’t get stuff done to build their business and these excused keep you from creating the business that you want. If you’re sick of letting these excuses cause your business to remain stagnant, check out this week’s video where I give you my tricks for squashing the top 3 excuses I hear entrepreneurs make: I don’t have time, I don’t know how, and I don’t have money.

What are your top excuses that threaten to keep you from moving forward with your business and what are the tricks you use to squash them?

Entrepreneurs understand that they need to keep their business’ finances in order if they’d like to obtain a business loan in the future. However, many are not aware that it’s imperative to keep their personal finances in tip-top shape as well.

There seems to be a major misunderstanding among small business and startup owners about the requirements for obtaining a business loan from a bank. I have seen many entrepreneurs not realize that even if the business is formed as a corporation, they will likely still need to provide a personal guarantee in order to get a loan. That means that their personal credit will affect whether the business gets approved.

Confused about why that’s the case? Watch this week’s video to learn more about why it’s so important that business owners maintain good personal credit in addition to keeping their company’s finances in top shape.